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Built in 1938 as a massive exhibition space and public fairground to promote the then-prosperous Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the site which would become New Belgrade first had to endure the horror of being transformed into a Nazi concentration camp, a scar that it bears to this day. Following the devastation of the Second World War, in which Belgrade was destroyed first by the Germans, and then again by the Allies towards the end of the war, the creation of New Belgrade by the Yugoslavian Communist government in 1948 was viewed locally as the beginning of a new era of hope and prosperity. Developed over the course of the next two decades from the 1950s to the 1970s, the area affectionately known as "Blokovi" — for the landscape that had become dominated by concrete apartment blocks — has continued to define much of the look and feel of New Belgrade, a city within a city that is today home to more than 200,000 people. This edition of Cityscape will take an in-depth look at at the distinct urban setting of New Belgrade, complete with a stroll through the heart of the concrete Blokovi district, truly a place like no other.
After breaking ground in 1948, New Belgrade rose quickly, with block after block of Brutalist-inspired concrete apartment towers sprouting up one after the other. Throughout the early 1950s, the Blokovi district was the pride of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, and the Communist vision of a utilitarian masterplanned community of social housing was seen as an overwhelming success. More than 100,000 construction workers were employed during the early years of mass construction, imported from all across the Republic for the task of rebuilding the capital in the image of the Communist liberators.
Of the entire 40-square-kilometre footprint of New Belgrade, it is the Blokovi district, with its endless array of concrete apartment towers, which has continued to capture the imaginations of urban explorers and photographers for more than half a century. Though the towers are often either graced by graffiti or adapted to accommodate make-shift upgrades, the original make-up of New Belgrade exists largely intact, albeit notably worse for wear, adding to the visual interest provided by the otherwise anonymous urban landscape.
Known for neatly arranged rows of identical apartment blocks that seem to go on forever, Blokovi is home to 90,000 inhabitants, or nearly half of the total population of New Belgrade. Originally laid out in a series of numbered blocks, or rows, the apartments that today define the majority of Blokovi all have their own numerical designation, making it possible to find oneself even amid a sea of identical apartment towers.
While Blokovi is most famous for its identical towers, the majority of New Belgrade is home to countless similar urban typologies and over-arching architectural themes, the main one being the strong influence of Brutalism, emphasized by an almost total reliance upon concrete construction.
True to its Communist roots, much of New Belgrade and especially Blokovi is home to a far-ranging mixture of inhabitants hailing from every end of the socio-economic scale, and it's not uncommon to find a bus driver living next to a neurosurgeon. The Communist-Era social housing blocks were fully privatized from the start, as they were issued by the government to applicants on a case-by-case basis back in the 1950s. Many of the original families and their descendants continue to live in the same units they were given more than 50 years ago.
In many ways, New Belgrade, the largest of Belgrade's 17 municipalities, has an identity all of its own. The highly residential tower-block-dominated suburb is situated just across the Sava River from downtown Belgrade. Without a subway, the relatively minute geographic divide between New Belgrade and Old Belgrade is artificially large, as a trip of just a few kilometres takes more than 30 minutes by public transit, exacerbating the perceived divide between the two.
From a cultural standpoint as well, New Belgrade's distinct suburban identity has become a staple of popular culture. The legacy of the decades-long city building project reverberates through the ages in various examples of film, television, and music productions from the last 30 years. While much more macro in its infancy, New Belgrade's identity was originally tied to great Soviet figures, such as Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, after whom one of the largest streets in New Belgrade is named.
More than just a monolithic residential district, New Belgrade is home to numerous colleges and universities, as well as many of the city's premier cultural facilities, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, part of a complex which will become the future home of the Belgrade Opera. Further cementing New Belgrade's public prominence within the context of the broader city, the district is also home to the Palace of Serbia, completed in 1959, which was originally used by the Federal Executive Council of Yugoslavia and is now used by the Government of Serbia.
Despite its longstanding public image as a place frozen in time, a series of new commercial developments in New Belgrade, such as the highly westernized Delta City shopping mall, have begun to gradually shift the common perception of the suburb as a solidly Communist throwback. The shopping mall and subsequent arrival of a small but growing collection of much more modern steel and glass office and apartment towers are slowly but surely dragging the district into the 21st century.
Though there has been a recent shift towards a much more modern westernized vision of New Belgrade, the heart and soul of the massive Communist-Era suburban district has remained largely unchanged. Much of the original architecture, and thus urban character, look, and feel of the area, remains very much as it was more than 50 years ago.
Endowed with a complex legacy that reaches back to the darkest depths of the Second World War, and into the half-century of political turmoil that the former Yugoslavian Republic endured in its wake, the present-day role of today's Serbian-governed New Belgrade continues to evolve. The district's distinct cultural identity will forever be part of the lives and social memory of the people who inhabit it, no matter what shape it may take on in the future.
Cityscape will return soon with a new installment, and in the meantime, SkyriseCities welcomes new suggestions for additional cities and styles to cover in the weeks to come. Got an idea for the next issue? Let us know!
